By any office standard, and especially for Bill Clinton’s 1990s-era, male-dominated West Wing, Patti Solis Doyle had an unusual work arrangement: a baby crib in her office.

It was her employer, then-first lady Hillary Clinton, who encouraged her scheduling director to bring her new baby girl to work. The arrangement lasted three months and included intern babysitting shifts and a nap-time door sign reading “Lee is sleeping.”

Over more than two decades of public service — as first lady, presidential candidate, senator and secretary of State — a hallmark of Clinton's management has been the hiring and promotion of women, from high-profile policy advisers and campaign managers to entry-level clerical staff.

It's reflective of how she's likely to staff and operate the White House, as well as an indication of how she would seek to govern as the nation's first female president (she's already committed to appointing women to half of her Cabinet positions).

“She made the work place flexible for us to grow. That was happening in very few places in corporate America,” said Solis Doyle, who worked for Clinton for 17 years and said she “firmly believes she supports women.”

“I can say this stronger than anybody because she fired me,” said the one-time 2008 campaign manager, who endured a painful public split as the candidate retooled her failing campaign.

Patti Solis Doyle at the Clinton campaign headquarters in June 2007.(Photo: Garrett Hubbard)

Demanding boss

USA TODAY contacted a dozen former female employees of Clinton, many lower-level staff listed on a 15-year-old government expenditure report from her Senate office.

These women say she could be demanding and blunt, and she expected results. Heather Hurlburt, a former speechwriter, recalled one unpleasant situation in which she was sent back to the drawing board to rewrite a speech several times.

Clinton was almost always accommodating for women whom she considered talented. Even now, some of the nation’s highest-profile female executives, like Yahoo chief executive Marissa Mayer, reject the flexible work schedules that Clinton allowed 20 years ago.

As the first woman to have had her own professional career up to the time she became first lady, Clinton had experienced the balancing act of having children and a career.

“Basically out of nowhere in a meeting she said ‘You know what, Patti, I’ve been thinking about it, babies are very portable at this age. I think you should put a crib in your office,’” said Solis Doyle. “She could tell I was anxious” returning to work.

In the White House, a significant percentage of Clinton’s staff was female. A review of a 2001 Senate payroll shows more than half of her staffers were female. Fifty-five percent of her current campaign staff are women, according to a recent FEC report, including political director Amanda Renteria, two of her three top policy advisers and most of her communications team. Still, the campaign’s top advisers remain mostly male, including chairman John Podesta, manager Robby Mook and chief strategist Joel Benenson.

Hillary Clinton claps during a dedication ceremony on Nov. 8, 1997, for the new wing of the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington.(Photo: William Philpott, AP)

Melanne Verveer, a former chief of staff to Clinton when she was first lady, said she “didn’t set out to hire women," but they formed a large pool of applicants. Working inside the Clinton White House was grueling, with marathon meetings and 18-to 20-hour days, and Clinton didn’t “take crap from people,” said Solis Doyle. Yet her staff loyalty is well-documented, with the word ‘Hillaryland’ often used to describe her innermost circle of confidantes.

Interviews with former staff, none of whom work for the current campaign, suggest a different source of that loyalty.

They said Clinton played the role of mentor — from accommodating working mothers to encouraging younger women to pursue higher education; as well as smaller gestures like including junior staff in meetings, giving advice on toddler ear infections, remembering birthdays, sharing leftovers from events and even participating in an '80s sing-along planned by junior Senate aides.

“She recognized that you get great talent out of people when they feel they’re part of a family," said Neera Tanden, who served Clinton from the time she was first lady to her 2008 campaign. "I’ve had the success I had because, at the time I had kids, I didn’t have to take a step back," she said.

Jennifer Kritz, now a hospital communications director in Boston, hasn’t worked for Clinton for more than 14 years, and her stint included working on constituent services in her New York Senate office.

Yet she also described her office as "like a family." When Kritz decided to leave and attend graduate school, Clinton arranged “a sit down,” she said, “and I really felt like she was engaged and interested in me.”

April Springfield Blanco got an internship by cold-calling Clinton’s office after seeing her testify before Congress. She later dropped out of college to type Clinton’s book, It Takes a Village. For at least six months, Blanco was by Clinton’s side as she passed the handwritten pages.

Yet the decision upset Blanco’s father, a bus driver from Georgia who’d worked hard to send her to college. Clinton invited Blanco’s parents to her birthday party. “She pulled him aside and told him she would make sure I went back to college,” said Blanco.

And she did. In 1996, Clinton set aside time from the campaign trail to proof Blanco’s essays. “She was probably the primary reason I went back to school,” she said, adding that the first lady later reached out to her while she attended Wellesley, Clinton's alma mater.

Not that Clinton was easy. Hurlburt, the former speechwriter recalled that Clinton also called to apologize after she was particularly critical during a series of speech rewrites.

“The thing that’s so smart about that as a management technique is she builds immense loyalty,” said Hurlburt. Clinton was not a yeller, said Blanco: “I was around her in all kinds of private situations, I think I would remember that.”

Hillary and Chelsea Clinton hold orphaned babies during a tour of Mother Teresa's Orphanage in New Delhi, India, on March 28, 1995.(Photo: John Gaps III, AP)

A formative experience

Clinton’s own child-care struggles had been mitigated by the fact that her mother, Dorothy Rodham, had moved in with her in the governor’s mansion in Arkansas.

Yet one experience may have been formative. Before she was first lady, Clinton represented the American Bar Association crisscrossing the country listening to female paralegals and lawyers struggling to balance work with child-care demands. “I don’t think she anticipated what she heard,” says Verveer. “What she got was an earful from partners in those hearings, about the difficulties women in the profession were having.”

Solis Doyle wasn't the only one who brought her baby to work.

During the first two months of the Clinton administration, Shirley Sagawa brought her son, Jack, in a basket until she found child care. One day, in the middle of a conference call, he started screaming. "I looked up to see Hillary in my doorway and was sure that was the last day he would be in the office." Instead, she picked him up and walked him around while I finished my call," said Sagawa.

In 2003, Tanden, then a legislative director, left the office every day at 6 p.m. to put her baby to sleep, then worked in the evenings.

"You give people maximum flexibility to be good workers, and then people want to do a really good job," said Tanden, noting she wound up working longer hours.

Her efforts to help working mothers were a constant throughout Clinton's career. At the State Department, after town hall meetings with employees, she changed the child-care policy to include back-up care since there were not enough slots at the agency’s Diplotots program.

Hillary Clinton arrives at the Beijing airport on Sept. 5, 1995, to speak to the U.N. World Conference on Women.(Photo: Greg Baker, AP)

One of Clinton’s proudest accomplishments is the product of an all-female staff effort: her 1995 speech in Beijing in which she declared that “human rights are women’s rights.”

Most of Bill Clinton’s male staff opposed the trip, especially coming after the arrest of Chinese-American activist Harry Wu, on the grounds it would further inflame relations with China, said Verveer. Clinton was looking beyond geopolitics to an opportunity to advance women’s rights.

“There were times when the women had to rally,” said Verveer. “Sometimes there are issues the guys don’t see.” As they jetted to Beijing, Clinton leaned over to her speechwriter, whispering, “I wanna push the envelope as far as I can," Verveer said as she recounted the story.

More than 15 years after Clinton left the White House as first lady, policies that would assist other working mothers, such as paid parental leave, remain unrealized.

Bill Clinton reaches into a crowd of supporters after his presidential victory as Hillary Clinton and Tipper Gore cheer at the Old State House in Little Rock, Ark., on Nov. 3, 1992.
J. Scott Applewhite, AP

Clinton greets pupils at P.S. 115 in the Washington Heights section of New York on Jan. 26, 1993, her first trip as first lady. One child said, "She's tall. She's pretty. She's wonderful and I think she's powerful."
Richard Drew, AP

Clinton gestures while testifying on Capitol Hill on Sept. 30, 1993, before the Senate Finance Committee, which was holding hearings on health care reform. Earlier that year, she was tapped by President Clinton to head the task force charged with crafting the administration's health care proposal.
John Duricka, AP

Five former first ladies pose at the National Garden Gala in Washington on May 11, 1994. From left are Lady Bird Johnson, Betty Ford, Rosalynn Carter, Nancy Reagan, Barbara Bush and Clinton.
Wilfredo Lee, AP

Clinton is greeted by participants in the 41st National Convention of the League of Women Voters on June 14, 1994, in Washington, where she spoke to the group about health care reform.
Charles Tasnadi, AP

Clinton talks to Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala during a health care rally on June 29, 1994, in Washington. In September, Majority Leader George Mitchell, D-Maine, announces that there is not enough support to pass a health care reform bill in the Senate, effectively ending Clinton's bid to pass the measure unveiled a year earlier.
Charles Tasnadi, AP

First lady Hillary Clinton shakes hands with members of land mine detecting teams at the "Alicia" U.S. Army Base as her daughter, Chelsea, looks on near Tuzla, Bosnia, on March 25, 1996.
Doug Mills, AP

Phil Donahue takes questions from the audience as Clinton autographs a copy of her book, "It Takes A Village: And Other Lessons Children Teach Us," during a taping of Donahue s show in New York on March 6, 1996.
Ed Bailey, AP

First lady Hillary Clinton stands with President Clinton during a presentation on new child care initiatives on Jan. 26, 1998. At the end of the presentation, the president strongly denied any sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky in a statement made in the Roosevelt Room of the White House.
Tim Dillon, USA TODAY

The first family walks with their dog, Buddy, to board Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House on Aug. 18, 1998. They were headed to Martha's Vineyard for a two-week vacation after the president confessed to a relationship with Lewinsky.
J. Scott Applewhite, AP

First lady Hillary Clinton looks on as President Bill Clinton makes a statement at the White House on Dec. 19, 1998, thanking Democratic House members who voted against impeachment and vowing to complete his term. The president would be acquitted by the Senate in February.
Susan Walsh, AP

President Clinton is saluted by a Marine honor guard as he and first lady Hillary Clinton step off of Marine One as they arrive in Littleton, Colo., on May 20, 1999, to meet with family members of the victims of the Columbine High School shooting.
Ed Andrieski, AP

Clinton tries on her new New York Yankees hat as she stands next to Yankees owner George Steinbrenner during an event honoring the 1998 World Series champions on the South Lawn of the White House on June 10, 1999.
Susan Walsh, AP

Hillary Clinton, left, celebrates with President Bill Clinton and their daughter, Chelsea, during her Senate victory rally in New York on Nov. 7, 2000. She defeated Republican Rep. Rick Lazio to become the first presidential spouse elected to Congress.
Ron Edmonds, AP

Sen. Clinton asks for questions from attendees at a news conference in which she proposed changes to the Sept. 11 Victim Compensation Fund rules on Jan. 13, 2002, in New York, as victims' families listen from the stage.
Kathy Willens, AP

Bill and Hillary Clinton laugh at remarks made by former president Jimmy Carter during the inauguration ceremony of the Clinton Presidential Center in Little Rock, Ark., on Nov. 18, 2004.
Roberto Schmidt, AFP

Sen. Clinton attends a Senate Armed Forces Committee hearing on the progress in the war in Iraq on June 23, 2005. Her 2002 vote in favor of a resolution authorizing President Bush to use force would become a hot-button issue in the 2008 presidential campaign.
Tim Dillon, USA TODAY

Sen. Clinton speaks to supporters at a town-hall style meeting on Jan. 28, 2007 in Davenport, Iowa, during her first campaign trip since forming her presidential exploratory committee. Clinton entered the campaign as the favorite to become the 2008 Democratic nominee.
Scott Olson, Getty Images

Clinton speaks during a campaign stop at the McConnell Center on Jan. 7, 2008, in Dover, N.H., coming off a third-place finish in the Iowa caucus. She would go on to win the New Hampshire primary, revitalizing her campaign.
Joe Raedle, Getty Images

Clinton speaks at Baruch College on June 3, 2008, in New York City as Barack Obama was on the cusp securing the Democratic presidential nomination on the final day of the primaries, with contests in South Dakota and Montana.
Spencer Platt, Getty Images

Clinton greets supporters at the National Building Museum in Washington on June 7, 2008, as she suspends her campaign for president. "Although we weren't able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you, it's got about 18 million cracks in it," she told supporters.
Ron Edmonds, AP

Secretary of State Clinton shakes hands after her farewell address to the staff in the C Street lobby of the State Department on Feb. 1, 2013. She left her post after traveling 956,733 miles and visiting some 112 countries.
Chip Somodevilla, Getty Images

Clinton speaks to the media at the United Nations in New York on March 10, 2015, in regard to her use of a private email server while serving as secretary of State.
Andrew Gombert, European Pressphoto Agency

Clinton meets with local residents at the Jones St. Java House on April 14, 2015, in LeClaire, Iowa, as she hits the campaign trail following her formal entry into the 2016 race.
Charlie Neibergall, AP